Re: Promoting Git developers

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 12, 2015, 22:38 UTC
Message-ID: <20150312223836.GB24492@peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq61a64xg8.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 10:05:43PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> > I spent many years as a "type C" contributor, and I remember how nice it
> > was to see my name mentioned occasionally as a useful person.
> 
> I guess that everybody is different ;-)
> 
> After throwing a small patch at ROCKbox (git.rockbox.org) back when
> they were still hosted on Subversion, I felt somewhat ashamed to see
> my name appear in their CREDITS file because the change I made was
> so insignificant. In such a flat list like that, you cannot tell who
> made significant contributions over time and who are just a casual
> drive-by contributor like me, unless you know the community and who
> are important in the community.

Heh. Actually, after writing that, I almost clarified, but did not think anybody was that interested. But since you replied...:)

Seeing my name in "shortlog" was nice, but not that exciting. I submitted a patch, it was taken, and of course it ends up in any automated lists of authors. What was much more rewarding was being mentioned specifically in "A note from the maintainer" as a helpful person. That had much more value because:

  1. It was one of a handful of names.

  2. It was picked by a human.

So in that sense, it is quite the opposite of including shortlog output in the release announcements (I still think the shortlog thing we have been discussing is a good thing, but not at the same level). I do not know that it is worth having a "Best of 2015" Git awards ceremony, but it is sometimes nice to thank people personally when you appreciate their efforts. I sometimes mail people off-list to do so.

-Peff